Last day. Airport to home

This will be my last blog, at least until I decide to do another crazy, lame brain  adventure.  If a had it to do all over again what would I do differently.
First of all I would have gotten clipless bike earlier and I would have trained harder.
Secondly I would bike the first three weeks and the last two weeks and skip the middle four weeks. I think that would be a very nice bike trip.
I do think the trip was done incredibly well. It was really well supported with staff,  vehicles, and great food.  More sleep, less community time would have been nice, but I do see the need. If I were asked I would make some suggestions on how to improve some things, but so far no one has asked.

But the biggest thing I am grateful for is what we had no control over  -  the weather.
We had three or four hot windless days, probably week three, but other than that the weather as been incredibly wonderful for biking.  Even though I am not superstitious I did not want to mention  how wonderful the weather has been. Even riding into DC is was unseasonable cool.  For that I am extremely grateful.

On the plane. Need to turn off phone .

Hope to see you all soon

Day sixty-One. Fairfax, Virginia to Washington, D. C.

Yes, we made it. And yes we are all feeling pretty amazing. We have celebratory dinner tonight. My brother and Marcy, his significant other will be there. I will go back with them to their house with  all my stuff. Tomorrow I will repackage my stuff. I will leave my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, bike and bike panniers,  plus other misc stuff . Tomorrow I will fly home and be home sometime tomorrow. 

Corinne and Eytan, plus my two nieces, Erica and Leslie, will be in Hull to welcome me home.  I'll see Jill Saturday morning. I can't wait.

Day sixty Williamsport, MD to Fairfax, Virginia

Our last full day of riding. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. Tomorrow is really just for show. We  start our ride at 10:30 instead of 6:30. We ride for a total of 23 miles which at this point is a pretty nothing day.
Kim and I decided it was going to be a good day, maybe even a fun day and it was. At Harper's Ferry we stopped for brunch. We found a great place - an Inn that served breakfast all day. We sat outside at a table that overlooked most of the town and felt like we were on vacation. From there we biked about 20 miles to a paved bike path, but on the que sheet it sounded like we would have to do a 7 mile climb, which turned out to be a very pleasant 7 miles of rolling hills.
We are now in the synagogue and just finished dinner prepared by them. I am ready to go to sleep, but of course need to have our community meeting. I know there was something that I thought might be interesting to write about, but my brain has pretty much shut down. I'm too tired to feel the excitement of finishing.
Tomorrow.
I'll definitely be excited tomorrow.

Day fifty-nine. Cumberland, MD to Williamsport, MD

This was definitely not a boring day, esp for me. Somehow I totally lost my brakes, both the front and rear and we were going down a very steep hill when I realized this. Also at the bottom of the hill was a four lane highway with many of our riders waiting to cross the road.  Checking my odometer later I was going 33 miles/ hour. As I am yelling I have no brakes I need to decide in a split second if the car coming towards us is far enough away. I decide to go across the first two lanes and quickly check the traffic coming the other way. Luckily there are no cars that are close and so I go across the next two lanes, turning left into the shoulder. My biggest fright was hearing Danielle scream as I rode past her as she was waiting to cross the first two lanes. There were about half the riders looking on, and pretty much what heard from them was that first of all it was very scary, and second they were impressed. Y my turning into the shoulder of the highway. It seemed like some of the thought I was going to crash into the side railing across the highway. Interesting I had not doubt about me making the turn. My only concern was not getting hit by oncoming traffic. About 1/4 up the highway I coasted to a hault. David, one of the riders, who it really good with bikes fixed the problem. Somehow my front brake had gotten jolted out of place, and I'm not really sure what happened to my back brake, but it had been getting less and less effective for the last few days, but it wasn't really a problem until today.
It took awhile for David to feel satisfied with my back brake so all the other riders went on. Than the problem was riding with David. Kim and I are the slowest riders. David is among the fastest. On my own I would rider faster, but I enjoy riding with Kim and certainly the time goes quicker with a partner. So now riding with David I pushed myself to go faster than I normally would if I was riding by myself, but I could only keep that up for a limited time. We must have been riding at a pretty good pace because we caught up to Kim before we got on the trail.
The trail was very gravelly and since it had rained, very full of puddles, but it was also beautiful. Kim and I didn't mind going slowly and enjoying the scenery.  Although  ten miles on the trail was enough  for us. We sagged from the first rest stop until the second one and than we got to ride on a very nice paved path. Our last 12 miles was why I was a bit nervous about this week. It was constant up and down and than some more up.  It was hard to believe that Hazon routed us over hill and dale instead of the trail, but Garth said last year the group complained so much about the unpaved part of the trail that they routed us on the rode instead. I think Kim and I would have been much happier on the gravel trail.
I'm still very confused about the ft/mile thing each day, but I will just ignore it. Yesterday was easy, today was tough, even though the ft/mile was higher yesterday than today.
Dinner in ten minutes, than community meeting. Tomorrow is our last full day. I guess I'll make it.

Day fifty-eight. Ohiopyle, PA to Cumberland, Maryland

Today was a very delightful day. We were on the trail between Pittsburg and DC the whole day. It's a beautiful trail and for the most part in shade. I barely even noticed the heat today. We rode about 50 miles on a slight uphill until the continental divide and than rode 25 miles downhill.  The only thing that would have made it a really great day is if the path had been paved, but all in all a very nice riding day. Also the congregation in Cumberland made dinner for us, which we all eat with relish or gusto, in other words we all ate a lot. We are now getting ready for bed.
We had our route briefing for tomorrow. We are still on the trail, but a very old part and it sounds like everyone was less than happy with the trail. I guess it's OK for a mountain bike, but not a rode bike. I might take the rode for the first 15 miles, than take the trail until the first rest stop and decide than if I want to continue another 30 miles on a rutted path. Supposedly you are not suppose to ride on it if it's raining and they are predicting a 50% chance of rain.
It's 8:30 now and as usual for this time of night I am tired.  It's hard to believe we only have three days left. And it's even harder to believe that I have actually ridden across most of this country.
I'll be home soon. Yay

Day fifty-seven. Pittsburg to Ohiopyle

Sunday evening. This is our last time camping. Very pleased about that. The ride today was much better than expected. I guess it was only the last four miles that really made the ride tough, but Kim and I , plus a few other people took the hiking trail to the campsite which cut out the hilly part of the ride. We had to walk our bikes up about 1/2 a mile, but that wasn't so bad. The rest of the day was on the trail so it was pretty flat. When we left Pittsburgh it was this wonderful paved trail, but that only lasted the first  fifteen miles or so and after that we were on packed trail. At least no sand traps like on Friday and it was very nicely shaded. So no complaints. Today we did 72 miles, tomorrow is 77, Tuesday and Wednesday are both 80 mile days and than our last day on Thur is only 23 miles.  And than we are done.
I am ready to be done, but if the rest of the week is similar to today it will be a really nice week to close out the trip.
Work crews change on Sunday, and got decided on yesterday. Kim decided to shake things up a bit and switch over to breakfast crew, which is nice for me because I can depend on her to really help. Also two of the teenagers are on breakfast this week, which will be a nice.
Young Ilan just made a camp fire and even though no one else seems to have noticed it, I'm enjoying it.  I think I'll sit here until it gets dark enough for me to go to sleep.

Day fifty-six. Shabbat Pittsburgh

Kim and I took the bus to downtown Pittsburgh, to see the city and to have breakfast/brunch. The place we choose via her phone was only open for working people - Monday thru Friday so we asked around and found out that our choice was a national chain like Dunkin donuts, bagels, or eating at a hotel restaurant. We choose the hotel and had a very nice relaxing breakfast with really good coffee, which came to the table in an insulated carafe, so I could have hot coffee the whole time. A concern of mine when eating out.
And this place has really nice bathrooms. Nice smelling soap. Little individual cloth hand towels that you put into a little basket when your done. And tomorrow I'll be happy to find a outhouse.
 I am now sitting in their hotel lobby airing my dirty laundry, I mean carrying  my dirty laundry. The biggest problem with staying at an orthodox home is you can't do laundry on Shabbat and since we had no time to do it yesterday before Shabbat we  carried our laundry with us downtown and will do it at the  laundromat  on our way back. Definitely not my idea and Kim even offered to carry mine as well. Life on the road. From the Fairmont hotel to the laundromat. I bet no one else here is planning a trip to the laundromat. But at least they'll probably have free Internet  as opposed to here where you have to be a guest or pay for it.

I just looked at the riding schedule for our last week and we are back to doing a lot of climbing. An average of 49 ft/mile, which to the non rider or anyone else who has never thought about this way of looking at a ride, it's hilly.  At least it won't be corn and soy bean fields.

So I have  given much thought, at least much thought for me, to why I signed up to take nine weeks out of my life to bike across the country.  Here it is.
A seed had been planted in my mind about 18 years ago when I heard about a mother/daughter bike ride across the country.
I got an e-mail two years ago from Andy Fischer announcing Hazon was doing a X USA ride.
The seed sprouted.
I liked biking
I have never really challenged myself.
Sounded like a good idea at the time.
End of story.

Would I do it again - no
Would I have done it in the first place if I knew what it would be like - probably not.
Will I be very happy and proud of myself for doing it - YES

And once again thank you for all the encouraging notes you sent to Jill to give along to me. I finished reading them this afternoon.  I will take you words of encouragement along with me on my last week of biking.
Not my last week ever, but probably my last week for a while.

Day fifty-five. Steubenville, Ohio to Pittsburgh, PA via W. Virginia

Yes, we were in three states today. Most probably only in West Virginia for an hour or two, but was the hardest hour or two of the day. We climbed over 500 feet over less than a 4 mile stretch. But actually that wasn't even the worse part of the day. After that we were on a bike path for 38 miles which was suppose to be hard packed dirt, but turned out to be mostly hard packed dirt with enough areas of loose sand to cause everyone to be on constant alert for a sandy patch. Everyone, but Hannah, agreed to was pretty terrible. She has far tires so it may have been easier for her. Howard,who rode the ride last year said that it was fine last year and thinks that super storm Sandy was the cause. At one point there was a sign saying "Caution - loose gravel. Sorry for any inconvenience". It took Kim and I forever to bike the trail. Also it started to pour half way through, so by the time we got to the synagogue we were tired, sweaty and dirty. We are staying with host families for Shabbat and were told they would pick us up at 4:00. Also our bags were in the back of the synagogue and our hosts were picking us up in front and it's a big building. Mine wasn't so bad, but Kim has a very heavy duffle bag which she lagged to the front of the building. And we waited for our ride to pick us up. At 4:20 a car pulls up for Kim and I plus 6 other riders and all their luggage. Good thing Kim and I are outside waiting with our luggage in the front. This person is there to drop us off at our host family so we have him take us first and come back for the others. Than we get to our host house, bring our bags up 7 steps, ring the door bell and there is no answer. This is not good. Luckily our driver is still there and says he will call on the phone. No answer. I ask him to check the address. He can't find the paper with the address. Wait, it's in his pocket. We are at the wrong house. Only one house over. And yes they are home. Back down 7 steps, back up 7 steps. I am now showered, but still need to get dressed. We are having dinner at the conservative synagogue at 5:30. Whoever decided the time for dinner was not thinking about the riders. And we are staying with an Orthodox family. Not sure how we got them, but we probably will not be seeing too much of them. Usually they put the more religious riders with the religious hosts. Oh well. At least Kim and I are together. Time to walk to synagogue. This is our last Shabbat weekend. Maybe more on thoughts about that tomorrow.

Day fifty-four Cochocton to Steubenville

Yes, we are staying in Steubenville , Ohio and we are even staying in the infamous high school. It's a nice looking school. A lot of natural light, round tables in the cafeteria, nice showers in the girls locker room. Staying inside is so much better than camping. No putting up tents, no Mosquitos, much better showers. Yes we are all in one big room, but I guess that doesn't seem to bother me. I had planned to write about eating and finding places to pee while on this ride but right now I'm feeling the same way about writing as I do about biking. I'm going to chalk it up to bad karma from being in this high school. Pittsburg tomorrow and our last Shabbat.

Day fifty-three. Columbus to Coch

There was a lot of drama today, but all is well now. It's so interesting how everyone has a different take on things. Garth rode today, which shouldn't have made much difference, but for whatever reason he seemed to come down hard on the young riders. He got really mad at one of them for riding too far out in the road on a fairly busy street, and restricted all three of them to riding with an "adult" I'm not really sure what that means, but it must be pretty annoying for them. They are all really good bikers and seniors in high school. I'm really enjoying having them on the ride. I do think Garth overreacted, but he's in charge. Than later in the day Eli was driving the van and two of the riders asked him if the could draft off the van. I had no idea what that meant, but apparently it meant driving the van about 30 miles an hour and having them bike behind it so they are kind of pulled with the van. Not the best idea, but they were all between the ages of 19 and 21 so to them it didn't see so bad. When Garth found out he saw red. It took him a while before he was calm enough to even talk to them. I think everyone got a warning to never do it again. Now we are all back at camp. This is a pretty nice camp. Lots of trees, bathrooms close by. Dinner crew busy making dinner, young Ilan looking for firewood to make a fire. I'm sitting off by myself sipping my wine, writing this blog. Having wine is always a bit tricky. We can buy our own wine or beer, but than what about if others want some. And if you give some to one what about ten others who might want some. So I have decided it is just much simpler to buy my own wine making sure it has a screw top, put it some where on the truck or van out of view. Otherwise it just gets too complicated. Life is tough on the ride. I glass of wine after a long ride always make things a bit easier. I think dinner is at 7:00 tonight and than we will have our usual community meeting. Hopefully it will be short and we can all go to bed early, but I have a feeling we will be rehashing all the events of the day. Time to refill my water bottle with another glass of wine. Only one more week and a day until D.C. Hoping for clouds and cool weather. And yes I know it's August and we are heading for D.C. I can still hope.

Day fifty-two. Springfield to Columbus, Ohio

Thinking about why I decided to do this bike ride I realized that I still may not fully know the answer, but I did come up.with some things I've learned because I've been doing this ride.
Here they are in no particular order of importance.

1. I can now tell you the geographical order of the northern states and their approximate size in comparison to each other. No small feat for someone that has lived on the east coast her whole life.

2. Truck drivers are very considerate of bike riders.

3. Washington state, northern Idaho and most of Montana are very beautiful, actually breathtaking in many parts, western North Dakota, northern South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio not so much.

4. I am very fortunate to be living in New England.

5. There is something wrong with using this much land for growing corn and soybeans.

6. Railroad tracks at a almost parallel line with the road are really dangerous for bike riders and even experienced riders can get caught in the tracks and fall.

7. Always stop at a bathroom when it is available because you never know when the next one will turn up. ( I knew this one, but I did pass this advice on to others).

8. A dirty bathroom is still better than peeing in the field.

9. That many people are not bothered by riding next to someone with a squeaky bike (even though it would drive me crazy).

10. How to keep kashrut.

11. How to kosher a stove, a stainless steel sink, and a microwave.

12. That when you adopt a highway you are obligated to keep that portion limiter free.

13. Minneapolis and St Paul are great biking cities. Columbus, Ohio is not.

14. Spokane, WA is very hilly.

15. There are numerous  ways to turn on a shower.

16. I am able to make good coffee in many various types of coffee makers.

I am sure that I will be able to think of many more interesting things that I have learned on this trip, but right now it is again time for bed. We are sleeping at a host family and I want to make the most of sleeping in a bed.

Day fifty-one. Richmond, IN to Springfield, Ohio

Today was another uneventful day - great when your biking  X country, not so good when your writing a daily blog.  I must say Ohio was a lot more interesting than Indiana so even biking 84 miles wasn't too bad. It was a 77 mile day but Kim and I deep in conversation missed the turn on the que sheet and wound up biking 7 extra miles.
Camping tonight - tent is up. Dinner is ready

Thinking today about what I would write about and two things came up.
First was how we have mostly coupled up while biking and secondly why did I do this ride.
I'll do the first one and leave the second one for another day.  Maybe I'll figure it out with a little more time.

At this point most people have a steady riding partner. I ride with Kim.  If we sag we usually sag together. Today I was less tired and was there to encourage her to go the distance. Sometimes she's stronger and does the same for me. And sometimes we both feel like taking a few miles off and sag for a portion or .
David and Gilad always ride together. I think they are trying to solve Talmudic problems, but they have a good time together and they also stop at playgrounds on the way and play.
Freddie and Terry always ride together and usually stop along the way. Terry likes to meet the locals and also I think he'd rather go out to eat.
The teenagers ride as a group and I have no idea what they talk about and I probably would rather not know.
If Danielle is off Arye will ride with Danielle. Otherwise I think he probably rides by himself.
Dena and Ilan usually ride together and love to stop food a real breakfast like eggs or if it's later in the day they'll stop at a bakery. But if Eli is riding that usually means that Dena will be riding with Eli, which than leaves Ilan without a riding partner. I think he has ridden with Dena and Eli, but I also know there have been times he has had to find his own way. Maybe only once or twice.
Today Hannah rode with Dena because Dena was sweep and Hannah offered to keep her company. Yesterday Hannah rode with me and Kim. Everyone once in a while Arye has riden part way with Hannah and she has ridden with Dena and Ilan. And she has also ridden with Kim when Kim was sweep.
So as I write this I'm thinking that Hannah gets to know everyone in the group, but the pairs get to know each other better. I guess it's a toss up.
As I write this it has starting raining. Glad I am all ready for bed and now I am just waiting for everyone to stop talking so I can go to sleep.
One last thing I just thought about. Adrienne has been off for the last week. Before she left, she and David were becoming a couple. She is coming back tonight . Actually David is picking her up at the airport.
So now we have three of the four staff paired up with three of the riders. It 's probably only interesting to us, but I had nothing better to write about.

Day Fifty (wow) Indianapolis to Richmond

Our second to last Sunday.  The countdown has began.  Ten riding days left. Today was a totally uneventful day.  We left Indianapolis this morning, rode 22 miles on a very nice bike path,  after that rode mostly on country roads and rode the last 23 miles on a nice smooth mostly shaded bike path into Richmond. We're staying at a Catholic High School which is much better than a synagogue because it has showers. And it has a walk in refrigerator and a walk in freezer, which means no emptying the coolers or filling the coolers in the morning. The whole cooler just gets wheeled into the Refrig or freezer. I am very relaxed. ( A little glass of wine doesn't hurt).
Word is there is no hot water for showers. Even that is not getting me upset.

Richmond, IN is where Earlham is, which is where Corinne went to college.  It feels nice that we are staying here.

Time for a short nap before dinner. All is well.

Day forty-nine. Shabbat Indianapolis at the JCC

Full disclosure: after our wonderful lunch yesterday Kim and I stopped in at "the Best Chocolate Store" to top off the lunch with a little dessert. I failed to mention it yesterday because, even though I did buy two pieces of chocolate, one chocolate truffle and one chocolate covered nuts, I only really love plain milk chocolate, which they did not have.  But Kim placed a picture of the store with a captions leading people to my blog. Social media can certainly get complicated.
Last night I never fell asleep during services or before dinner. I actually enjoyed services, but not at a participant. It was just the Hazon group and they formed a circle in the middle of a large room.  I was in the room but towards the back lying down, relaxing and as an observer. It was nice.

Today has been very pleasant. Woke up around 9:00, had a leisurely cup of coffee, a simple pleasure that I love and usually do not have time to enjoy.  Left here around 11:00 with Kim, Terry and Freddie to do laundry and go out to lunch. We found a great Mexican restaurant near the laundromat and I ordered huevoes ranchero which is one of my favorite brunch meals and it was delicious. Terry treated both Kim and I which was very nice as well.
We got back to the JCC and I decided to check out the water area which I had been hearing so much about. It was quite amazing. This is the fanciest outdoor water area I have ever seen for a JCC. First of all it's huge. Second it has at least a dozen 18 ft expanse umbrellas (one of which I am siting under now). It also has a huge water slide, a lazy river, a large outdoor pool and a very large area for kids with waterfalls and other things spraying all over the place. And the water temperature is like bath water. And it wasn't crowded. No wait for the water slide. Not sure how many times I went down, but  it was definitely fun.
Came back to Mr. Cohen's room and planned to just rest a bit, but fell asleep for 2 hours. I hear people getting ready for dinner.  Time to go. I may be able to stay up until after Havdalah tonight. This could be a first.

Day forty-eight Lafayette to Indianapolis

Kim and I decided yesterday while we were riding past our 100th cornfield and maybe our 150th soybean field that Indiana was very similar to northern South Dakota except for the ratio of corn fields to soybean fields and that we would skip the up close and personal part of the trip and get to Indianapolis by a four wheel vehicle instead of our usual two wheels. Which means we still need to get up at 4:45, back up our stuff, eat breakfast at some ungodly hour, pack up the coolers, rush around to make sure everything is getting packed up, circle up, and than wait. The wait is for Garth, who is driving the truck today, to do his morning prayers. So Kim and I took a walk around the neighborhood and now we're back waiting to leave. Leaving in five minutes. Will write more later.

Later
Kim and I had a lovely day. Not sure when we got to the JCC in Indianapolis,  but probably around
9:00. We got enough information to get us to the Nature Park near by. It was the first time in a while that I got on my bike and said "it feels good to be biking". From the Nature Park we found out how to get to the bike path that would bring us downtown. On the way Kim got a hair cut and I checked out the smoke shop next door. The bike path was nicely shaded and lead right to downtown Indianapolis. We decided on a busy bistro place for lunch and we were not disappointed. It was as if we were on vacation. I decided that this meal deserved a glass of wine and we also split an order of fried sweet potatoes that really were the best fried sweet potatoes I've ever had. I could go back tomorrow. We biked bike to the JCC and clocked in 26 miles for the day.  I think this was a wonderful way to spend the day.  We're thinking maybe we should do this again.
Kim and I have scoped out our sleeping area. We though we were going to have to sleep in a big room all together, but no we have the choose of eight classrooms or the library. We have Mr. Cohen's classroom. I think others will find their own private place. We are not really wanting to share our space . Not exactly one big happy family.

Time for community meeting. After that Friday services and after services dinner which means dinner at 9:30. Way too late, but we did have very good snack time at 6:00  -  last night's spinach feta pie and hummus with veggies. So I may go to sleep before dinner.  Or maybe during services.

Day forty-seven. Lake Village to Lafayette

Tonight we're sleeping in a synagogue and the congregation provided a really nice dinner. All home made and very good. The only problem with having the congregation make dinner is that we need to wait until everyone is done and than we need to speak about the trip. Sometimes everyone says something, but that always takes too long so luckily tonight only Dena is speaking. I should be socializing at the moment, but I'm doing this blog instead.
OK I put the phone away until after dinner. Dessert was homemade blueberry cobbler with fresh whipped cream, plus vanilla and chocolate ice cream I am very full, but after biking 80 miles today at least I don't have to worry about what I'm eating. I don't think I'm losing any weight, but yes I am very fit. And yes I am very tan.
Now we have to gather for our community meeting. Not sure if there really is anything new to discuss but they really like everyone to be present.
I got out of community meeting ( which is really pretty amazing) but it was because I was very busy cleaning out the rest area coolers which were pretty disgusting and needed a good amount of time to organize and clean out.  So at least we'll at least start the day with clean coolers.
Time for bed.